Dennis Venema, the “heavy hitter” of Biologos when it comes to evolutionary theory — hands up, professors of evolutionary biology at Chicago, Harvard, Stanford, Columbia, Yale, Oxford, Cambridge, etc., if you have heard of Dennis Venema — has recently issued some remarks about ID in an interview. [a lot of whining]The moneybags who fund Biologos would be wiser to start a whole new theology/science project, one run by people who are much more cognizant of the very latest developments in biological science and the very latest developments in post-graduate-level theology. And, above all, one run by people who honor the basic academic principle that one should make sure one understands a theoretical position before one criticizes it.

Requirement to criticise ID: Being a professor of evolutionary biology at a top notch university who understands the "theoretical position" of ID, i.e. pretends that there is one.

--------------"Random mutations, if they are truly random, will affect, and potentially damage, any aspect of the organism, [...]Thus, a realistic [computer] simulation [of evolution] would allow the program, OS, and hardware to be affected in a random fashion." GilDodgen, Frilly shirt owner

I attended a Christian College (now University) that had a tendency to seek out professors who had some secular academic credentials. They ended up in one instance courting Tony Campolo in Sociology from the UofP. No friend of Darwin, though. So there is a way. Of course, I don’t really know if there aren’t any open Darwinists there, but perhaps some secret Darwinists.

I wouldn’t be surprised if practically every Christian college has it’s secret Darwinist, just as practically every secular college has it’s open Christian.

What’s really alarming though is the open Darwinist in a decidedly Evangelical college. This is the sort of practice that eventually causes a college to abandon it’s Christian roots. Then the foundation is lost and it becomes another secular college like all the others that have gone before: Princeton (Presbyterian), Yale (Congregationalist), Dartmouth (Puritan), to name a few. Well funded colleges to be sure, but not exactly Christian anymore. Some discernment is in order.

You can't make stuff like that up.

"Secular academic credentials" in a prof, outrageous!

--------------"Random mutations, if they are truly random, will affect, and potentially damage, any aspect of the organism, [...]Thus, a realistic [computer] simulation [of evolution] would allow the program, OS, and hardware to be affected in a random fashion." GilDodgen, Frilly shirt owner

Is musical ability heritable? I’ve read that it does tend to run in families.

The mixing and matching of existing genetic information (which obviously occurs) is not what Darwinism attempts to explain. It attempts to explain the origin of completely novel, never-before-seen information.

As far as musical ability is concerned, I believe I got some of that, but it definitely doesn’t run in the family. It appears to have appeared out of nowhere in my family lineage.

The obvious question Gildo doesn't dare to ask? Why did he obviously not inherrit the intellectual capacity that run in the family? It appears to have vanished into nowhere.

--------------"[...] the type of information we find in living systems is beyond the creative means of purely material processes [...] Who or what is such an ultimate source of information? [...] from a theistic perspective, such an information source would presumably have to be God."

Even under an ID hypothesis, plant carnivory ought to have some function, right? It’s not exactly revolutionary to suggest that the function of *carnivory*, i.e. *eating things*, is probably to *get nutrients*. Gimme a freakin’ break here!

The only reason you guys are objecting to these basic points is that you just hate Darwin and somehow have got it in your head that the association between carnivorous plants and low-nutrient situations is some kind of evolutionary/Darwinist conspiracy. But that just ain’t so.

If you follow the discussion, that's exactly what's going on. In essence, they're arguing that there's no benefit for the plant in being carnivorous. But no one asks why, if that were true, a supposedly intelligent designer would've made them carnivorous. Probably because god the designer works in mysterious ways.

--------------"Random mutations, if they are truly random, will affect, and potentially damage, any aspect of the organism, [...]Thus, a realistic [computer] simulation [of evolution] would allow the program, OS, and hardware to be affected in a random fashion." GilDodgen, Frilly shirt owner

If he weren't so sanctimonious, condescending, and willfully ignorant, one could almost feel some sympathy for kairosfocus. He's so blinded by Leweontin's statement that "Moreover, that materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door." that he is actually incapable of understanding that the following sentences explain exactly why this is the case: "The eminent Kant scholar Lewis Beck used to say that anyone who could believe in God could believe in anything. To appeal to an omnipotent deity is to allow that at any moment the regularities of nature may be ruptured, that miracles may happen."

When you understand the scientific method, kairosfocus, you will be able to understand Lewontin.

Even under an ID hypothesis, plant carnivory ought to have some function, right? It’s not exactly revolutionary to suggest that the function of *carnivory*, i.e. *eating things*, is probably to *get nutrients*. Gimme a freakin’ break here!

The only reason you guys are objecting to these basic points is that you just hate Darwin and somehow have got it in your head that the association between carnivorous plants and low-nutrient situations is some kind of evolutionary/Darwinist conspiracy. But that just ain’t so.

If you follow the discussion, that's exactly what's going on. In essence, they're arguing that there's no benefit for the plant in being carnivorous. But no one asks why, if that were true, a supposedly intelligent designer would've made them carnivorous. Probably because god the designer works in mysterious ways.

If The Fall could make those nice plant-eating T-rexes turn into carnivorous beasts, then surely the plants had to join them.

--------------"Just think if every species had a different genetic code We would have to eat other humans to survive.." : Joe G

--------------"[...] the type of information we find in living systems is beyond the creative means of purely material processes [...] Who or what is such an ultimate source of information? [...] from a theistic perspective, such an information source would presumably have to be God."

The five-fingered limb is much easier to subtract from than add to. That’s the fundamental problem with Darwinian evolution. There is an original law, probably based on design.

Or maybe there's common descent.

--------------"Random mutations, if they are truly random, will affect, and potentially damage, any aspect of the organism, [...]Thus, a realistic [computer] simulation [of evolution] would allow the program, OS, and hardware to be affected in a random fashion." GilDodgen, Frilly shirt owner

ID proponents SHOULD be “truthers”, because both have come to their conclusions from following the evidence, not popular, or an expert’s, opinion.

Please stop the perforative use of the term “conspiracy theorist”. Every Law Enforcement Officer is a conspiracy theorist, and they arrest people for conspiracy often.

Some truthers might be a bit insane, but the one’s leading the movement are mostly scientists. www.ae911truth.org

Come on, UD, only one truther? There must be more!

BTW, isn't it great that he tries to make the truthers seem reasonable by claiming that they're all scientists? Paragwinn:

Quote

Actually, ae911truth.org is led by architects and engineers, not scientists.

I LOL'ed.

--------------"Random mutations, if they are truly random, will affect, and potentially damage, any aspect of the organism, [...]Thus, a realistic [computer] simulation [of evolution] would allow the program, OS, and hardware to be affected in a random fashion." GilDodgen, Frilly shirt owner

According to the current theory of evolution ALL genetic changes are accidents/ mistakes/ errors.

I’m not aware of anything in evolutionary theory that says that the goal of reproduction is an exact copy. What is required for evolution to happen is actually reproduction with variance, so genetic changes serve a purpose – i.e. they are not accidents, mistakes or errors in the sense that they are unintended – but they are all random with respect to fitness.

There is an important difference between randomly generated, but necessary, variety and just unwanted errors.

Evolution depends on variety so by definition variety in its self is not an error, or to put it another way – you don’t understand evolutionary theory.

Perhaps Joe can point to a specific example of a genomic change that was not the result of a stochastic process.

He already did.

On his blog.

You are just too stupid to understand.

Assface.

--------------It's natural to be curious about our world, but the scientific method is just one theory about how to best understand it. We live in a democracy, which means we should treat every theory equally. - Steven Colbert, I Am America (and So Can You!)

bornagain77 has identified a tool in the Darwinist Conspiracy To Supress Evidence Regarding The Cambrian Explosion: Fossil Collectors!ba77

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David, perhaps it was a case of ‘cognitive dissonance’ on [Charles Doolittle] Walcott’s part, but none-the-less, despite the level to which Walcott suppressed that which was so surprising to him that it caused him to collect 60,000 specimens, it is certainly a clear example of a inherent materialistic bias for which we have all paid a severe price in the setting back science for several decades

David W. Gibson

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Not at all. Walcott was a collector. He squirreled away FAR more specimens than that; he collected fossils of any and all kinds from everywhere he went. He was not ‘cognitively dissonent’, any more than any other collector. He did not “suppress” anything, he simply collected it. Collectors do that.

Evidently, museum drawers are the Vanishing Cabinets of Conspiratorial Magic.

--------------"[...] the type of information we find in living systems is beyond the creative means of purely material processes [...] Who or what is such an ultimate source of information? [...] from a theistic perspective, such an information source would presumably have to be God."